10 Things to Talk About This Weekend

Conversation starters for every social situation.

1. Michael Keaton gets weird/awesome in Birdman trailerThe onetime Batman is returning to the screen as a very different kind of superhero in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s latest, out in October. Keaton plays a down-and-out actor who was once famous for playing a famous caped crusader, and is starting to lose his marbles. The trippy trailer features Keaton wrestling Ed Norton, giant explosions, hallucinatory monster birds and the always-awesome Emma Stone.
[Vulture]

2. Israel and Hamas agree to three-day ceasefire. It doesn’t last.Following three weeks of violence, the two sides agreed to a 72-hour pause in hostilities, in an agreement mediated by the United Nations and the U.S. That lasted until this morning. So far in the conflict, more than 1,400 Palestinians have died—including, earlier this week, 15 refugees taking shelter inside a Gaza schoolhouse.
[The Guardian]

3. OKCupid lied to its users for . . . science. Yeah . . . science.Surprise! The social Internet is messing with your thoughts and feelings again. In a blog post entitled “We Experiment on Human Beings!” OKCupid cofounder Christian Rudder brazenly admitted that the dating site has purposely given its users bad matches in order to test out their algorithms. Thanks a bunch for those five terrible years with Chad, Rudder. [Business Insider]

4. Boehner and the gang vote to sue Obama over healthcare reformThe Republican majority in the House of Representatives have decided that they’re going to bring a lawsuit against the President claiming that he overstepped his executive authority with changes he made to the affordable care act. Guys, can’t we just be happy that more Americans can go to doctors now? [Chicago Tribune]

5. The Evil Dead series coming to TV, complete with AshShut it ooooffffffff!!! Thirty-three years after the comedy-horror cult classic hit theaters, director Sam Raimi and original star Bruce Campbell are developing a TV show based on the flick. Time to break out the ol’ chainsaws. [Rolling Stone]

6. Facebook bringing free Internet to ZambiaSocial network CEO Mark Zuckerberg (the real one, not the Jesse Eisenberg one) is taking his Internet.org app to the southern African nation, granting Web access to people across the country who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it. [Information Week]

7. Nebraska man arrested for driving drunk with 100 chickensWhy did the chicken cross the road? To get the hell out of this guy’s SUV. Luis Motola-Palacio was found to not only have committed a DUI, but to have done so with 100 cluckers (half of them dead!) stuffed in the back of his car. [Gawker]

8. One policeman handed out 80 percent of Seattle’s weed infractionsOf the 83 public marijuana-smoking tickets that have been issued since the beginning of the year, 66 were written by one very jerky, racist cop. He’s been reassigned, but we have a funny feeling that this guy won’t quit—he’s kind of the Inspector Javert of getting baked. [The Wire]

9. Galactic magnifying glass found in deep spaceA galaxy 9.6 billion light years away, recently discovered by the Hubble Telescope, may significantly beef up our view of the universe. It’s called a lensing galaxy, because through its gravitational field, scientists can observe magnified versions of even more distant space. And also possibly fry ants on the sidewalk. [Space.com]

10. BuzzFeed politics editor canned for plagiarized listiclesIn what sounds like a real-life Onion article, BuzzFeed viral politics editor Benny Johnson has been fired for lifting wholesale chunks of text from such fine sources as Yahoo Answers and Wikipedia for pieces including “9 Times Putin Pwned Obama” and “How 9 Other Massive Manhunts Ended.” Bad journalism has officially swallowed its own tail. [Politico]